For many people the greatest artist, and the quintessential
Renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was
a painter, architect, theatre designer, engineer, sculptor,
anatomist, geometer, naturalist, poet and musician. His Last
Supper in Milan has been called the greatest painting in
Western art.
Illegitimate, left-handed and homosexual, Leonardo
never made a straightforward career. But from his earliest
apprenticeship with the Florentine painter and sculptor
Andrea Verrochio, his astonishing gifts were recognised. His
life led him from Florence to militaristic Milan and back, to
Rome and eventually to France, where he died in the arms of
the King, Francis I.
As one of the greatest exponents of painting of his time,
Leonardo was celebrated by his fellow Florentine Vasari (who
was nevertheless responsible for covering over the great fresco
of the Battle of Anghiari with his own painting). Vasari's
carefully researched life of Leonardo remains one of the main
sources of our knowledge , and is printed here together with
the three other early biographies, and the major account by
his French editor Du Fresne. Personal reminiscences by the
novelist Bandello, and humanist Saba di Castiglione, round
out the picture, and for the first time the extremely revealing
imagined dialogue between Leonardo and the Greek sculptor
Phidias, by the painter and theorist Lomazzo , is published in
English.
An introduction by the scholar Charles Robertson places
these writings and the career of Leonardo in context.
Approximately 50 pages of colour illustrations, including the
major paintings and many of the astonishing drawings, give a
rich overview of Leonardo's work and mind.